


Such Very Good Friends

by elrhiarhodan



Series: The Wonder(ful) Years Verse [8]
Category: White Collar
Genre: Domesticity, M/M, POV Outsider, Sickfic, alternative universe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-04
Updated: 2012-12-04
Packaged: 2017-11-20 07:27:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,160
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/582821
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/elrhiarhodan/pseuds/elrhiarhodan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter’s mom, Cathy, is surprised at how close Peter and Neal are, and how nurturing Peter has become.  He's making soup for his roommate, Neal, who has pneumonia and wants her recipe.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Such Very Good Friends

After dinner on Thursday night, Cathy Burke waited for her weekly phone call from her son, Peter. Back when the boys were still living in the dorms, the phone would ring twice and hang up. She or Joe would call back, so Peter didn’t have to pay for the call. Since Neal bought a house and didn’t have to deal with the exorbitant long distance rates the phone company charged for student lines, they didn’t have to go through those shenanigans.

Not that they spent a long time on the phone – Peter always had something do to. Either studying or sports or going out. It was funny though, he never seemed to have a girlfriend or even talked about a girl. She had thought maybe her son will still pining over Elizabeth Mitchell, who had ended things just before the end of their senior year (and Cathy was still flabbergasted that she went to the prom with Neal’s weird little friend, Mozzie). But it wasn’t that.

Peter simply didn’t date. He went out either with “the guys” (who were never named) or with Neal. There was nothing that they didn’t do together. And Neal, to the best of her knowledge, didn’t date either. He studied, he worked on his art, and he hung out with Peter.

When the boys went off to Harvard about three years ago, Cathy had wondered if their recently repaired friendship would survive in that new environment. When she herself had gone away to school, she roomed with her best friend from high school. Their friendship and the housing arrangements didn’t survive the first semester. If Neal hadn’t been so young, and so clearly dependent on Peter, she would have cautioned her son against it, rooming with Neal was a bad idea and bound to destroy their friendship.

And yet it wasn’t a bad idea after all. They somehow avoided the problems of transitioning from a high school friendship to that of college roommates, and seemed to grow even closer. Peter and Neal were so close that she worried that the boys didn’t seem to have any close friends but each other. They were just about attached at the hip, like Siamese twins. She’d seen newly married couples who gave each other more breathing space than Peter and Neal.

When she talked to Joe about it, he shrugged. “Why are you so concerned? The boys are getting good grades; they aren’t doing drugs or having promiscuous sex.”

“And how would you know that?”

“I’ve asked them – well, I asked Neal when we went up to visit. Just wanted to make sure they weren’t going off the rails.”

“And you believed him?” Cathy was highly skeptical that a 17 year old boy, in the first months away from home, would tell his best friend’s father the truth about his recreational activities.

“Yes, hon. I believe him. Neal would never lie to me. And he wasn’t trying to misdirect me either. They go out together, have a few drinks, flirt, have some fun with the girls and go back to the dorm. They’re both on pretty intensive academic tracks, and Peter’s got to maintain his grades for his scholarship – so yeah, when Neal tells me they aren’t interested in fucking up, I believe him.”

All through that first semester, Cathy remained skeptical, but her husband was probably right. Neither of the boys had been inclined to wild behavior in high school and she was probably doing them a disservice by thinking they’d go a little crazy at the first taste of freedom.

Neal grew into himself very quickly – by the time they came home for Thanksgiving, he shone with a rougish charm that took her breath away. He flirted with her, and if she didn’t consider herself his surrogate mother, she might have flirted back – just to see what would happen. Joe, bless his heart, was oblivious. Peter, who also seemed to gather maturity like an old tree gathers moss, would just smile and shake his head at Neal’s antics.

She eventually stopped worrying and simply accepted that Peter and Neal were two sides of the same coin. You couldn’t have one without the other. Time would work to separate them gently. That was the way of the world, wasn’t it? 

The phone finally rang – it was close to eleven and Cathy was getting worried. It wasn’t like Peter to call so late. Joe had gone to bed an hour ago, but she was a night owl and rarely turned in before one in the morning, staying up to watch Carson and then The Late Show. The phone rang shrilly and she picked it up before the first ring finished.

“Peter?”

“Sorry, Mom – didn’t mean to call so late.”

“I was worried, sweetheart. Is everything okay?” Mother’s instinct was telling her that something was wrong.

“It’s Neal – he’s really sick.”

“Has he been to the infirmary?” Cathy was a little relieved. She loved Neal like a son, but she was also grateful it wasn’t Peter.

“Yeah – he has pneumonia.”

Now she was worried again – that was serious. “Is he in the hospital?”

“No, mom – we’re at home. I’ve been taking care of him.”

“Oh, honey – that so good of you.” And a little strange. “But you shouldn’t get sick yourself.”

“I’m drinking a lot of orange juice, taking extra vitamin C and showering frequently.”

“You’re not skipping classes to take care of Neal?” 

“No – I’m not.” But he probably was and wouldn’t tell her.

“Is there anything I can do?”

“Well, yeah.” From the tone of his voice, that maternal instinct was telling her that whatever he was about to ask was probably a little embarrassing. She could see Peter standing there, rubbing the back of her neck. 

“What – what do you need?”

“Can I have your chicken soup recipe?”

Cathy was so flabbergasted she had nothing to say.

Peter continued in a rush. “Neal is having trouble eating and I thought soup would help. But he hates the canned stuff, says it tastes like aluminum foil. So I thought I could make him some real soup – if it wasn’t too difficult.”

Cathy felt her heart melt. When Peter was little and he had a bad cold, all he ever wanted to eat was her chicken soup. “It’s really not difficult, but you’ve got to start with the right type of chicken…”

She finished giving him the recipe, listened while he read it back to her, and finally offered him some pointers. “Call me if you run into trouble, okay?”

“Thanks, Mom – you’re the best.”

“Love you, sweetheart. Tell Neal I’m worried and to get well soon. And that I love him too, okay?”

“Sure thing.”

She hung up the phone and stared at it. When did her son become so nurturing? She smiled and thought he’d make some girl a wonderful husband some day. Pity that Neal was a boy – they were otherwise the perfect couple.

__

FIN


End file.
